


Snake Skin

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: Amber-verse, Gen, early years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The early years, when the Dunham girls first arrive in Nina's care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snake Skin

_Nous appelons notre avenir l’ombre de lui-meme qui notre passe’ projette devant nous._

                      - Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

(What we call our future is the shadow which our past throws in front of us).

 

 

 

“Focus on a tree, half a football field away in length, a canopy of leaves stretching outward. Its bark is gnarled, the grass burnt sierra at its feet, a dried out bloodstain. Its branches reach silently toward the void. It’s old. Still. Focus your attention to the right of it, let your eyes relax, breathe out, in, bones lengthening, stretching deep into the ground. Let the surrounding light – the reflections of green, blue, yellow – steer us. Let the trees aura be as gentle as the guiding North Star, an aura peaceful, old as time. Can you see it, feel it?”

She sees a little girl, tummy protruding in a three year olds distinctive stance. Her eyes are metallic, shining like headlamps and the distance between them is the chasm of unfathomable space.

Olivia wakes up cold.

Beside her, Rachel farts, the sound ricochets off the panelled walls of the studio class. Rachel bites her lower lip, incisor showing, her nose (appropriately) scrunches. The surrounding yoga student’s sway like the trees they’re emulating, parting for the odorous wind.Olivia calculates she has thirty seconds flat to get her sister out of there before she starts giggling. On the other side, Ms. Sharp remains serene. “Sorry,” Rachel mutters to the class, and then snorts.  Olivia rises from Sukhasana and grabs her by the wrist; they make it outside before Rachel looses it completely, hiccupping with laughter.

After the final _Namaste_ has been uttered and the last yoga student files past, Ms Sharp emerges from the room and heads for the green tea, her eyes slanting in their direction.

“Boring,” Rachel singsongs. She has a Coke between her fingertips and a packet of half-eaten Pringles poking from the top of her bag. “Mystical-bestial exercise, striking cobras and raise-my-ass to the world poses.” She’s coarse, slouched like a teenaged hoodlum, two years off thirteen and killing the attitude.

“Noted,” Nina says dryly. “You, Olive, how did you find it?”

The sneer on Rachel’s mouth becomes pronounced. She stuffs three chips into her mouth and looks away. Olivia rubs her thumb over her sister’s wrist. There was something about the measured tones, an octave too high maybe, the slow cadence of imagery and words; the sense of being _led_. Meditation began with the chime of a single bell.

“I didn’t like it.”

Olivia moves a step to the left and angled in front, she doesn’t let go of her sister’s wrist, tense. Beside her, Rachel goes alert, picking up the undertone. She loses the slouch cautiously, her gaze bouncing between Ms. Sharp and Olivia.

Nina quirks an eyebrow calmly, the teacup balanced on her palm.

There’s a creak of a wooden door as the instructor leaves the studio class. He nods amiably at the three of them before walking by. Olivia’s been in Ms. Sharp’s care for two weeks and only addresses her by title. She’s encouraged to speak her mind, to be as blunt as necessary. _“I prefer verbal recourse over violent solution, Olive dear. Don’t hesitate to talk, don’t ever believe I won’t listen to you.”_ Olivia’s old enough to know adults lie, sometimes with smiles, hiding a clenched fist behind his back, sometimes honestly, with tears in her slate coloured eyes, not realising it’s a promise she won’t keep. Olivia’s old enough to search out the emotion behind the words, auras and trees too simple a metaphor; she feels more like a snake, flicking her tongue out to taste the air, trying to gauge the vibrations and pheromones, struggling to outgrow a skin that strangles.

 _Don’t hesitate to speak your mind_ smells like danger, the traps her stepfather set, the violence her mother failed to protect them from. Olivia returns Ms. Sharp’s scrutiny, her body impassive, still. “I won’t go back. Neither will Rachel.”

Olivia doesn’t speak her mind she simply acts on it, forewarning is forearming, and the less her peers know the better. The give feels weird, unstable. Ms. Sharp doesn’t seem dismissive, her voice remains even, the faint lines around her mouth, the wrinkling between her eyebrows, speak of thoughtfulness rather than anger. “Very well. I’ll cross yoga off the list.” She turns her attention to Rachel. “Maybe _you_ should suggest something. There must be at least one activity the three of us can agree on.”

Rachel’s hand tightens on Olivia’s in surprise, _what do I do_ echoing until the air is thick with it, all of her carefree confidence, sniping, humour, gone in the blink of an eye. Rachel’s not sensitive – not in the way William Bell spoke of – but she’s attuned to Olivia, grew up in the same house with the same violence, learned to take her cues from her big sister. Olivia feels a little sick, that she could strip that away with a shift in demeanour, feels a little proud, how Rachel trusts her implicitly when it comes to judging the adults in their life.

Rachel’s watching her, hand sticky with Pringles and unasked questions.

It’s been two weeks and normally Olivia has a better handle on people; she can’t read Nina; doesn’t know if telling her exactly what she thinks is a good or bad thing; she wants to see her sister smile again. “Go on. You must have thought of something to embarrass Ms. Sharp.”

Rachel studies the older woman brazenly. “A pogo-stick competition down main street?”

“French cooking lessons,” Ms. Sharp counters.

“Swimming with sharks?”

“Horse riding in the Appalachians?”

“Really?”

“It could be arranged.”

Rachel blinks. She looks at Olivia once, biting her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth. “How about martial art lessons?”

Nina considers her seriously, unlike Rachel she doesn’t look in Olivia’s direction. “Establishes confidence and self-control, both of which should be encouraged in young women, but I can’t help wonder, Rachel, was there another activity you were interested in? Maybe we can trade off between multiples.”

“I liked the idea of horse-riding,” she admits, shyly.

“Horse riding, Muay Thai, and French cooking?”

“I don’t like cooking.”

“My dear, French restaurants are perfectly acceptable too.”

Nina does look in Olivia’s direction then, face solemn with negotiation. Her hair’s the colour of murder and there’s a glint of mischief in her eyes. She doesn’t flinch from Olivia’s stare. Slowly, one muscle at a time, Olivia steps outward, until Rachel’s no longer barricaded behind her. Horse-riding and Saturday brunch are the staples of their first months, the three of them chatting over boys, company politics, the next novel in the English literature program or the debate over stem-cell research; no topic is forbidden under Ms. Sharp’s care. Muay Thai: Olivia does alone, three times a week, her hands wrapped protectively with her shin guards on, elbows bruised bloody. Yoga was the first activity Nina Sharp selected – with the drone of the instructor’s voice, the sharp ring of a single bell – awakening the image of a girl with mirrors shining from her eyes.

Olivia never tries to meditate again, bored and itchy, her limbs twitching from the thought of it. The image of the little girl stays though, a finger stretching across the void, hooked into her mind’s eye.

She paces alongside Olivia, visible out of the corner of her eye, and never seen head-on.

She spots her image in thoroughfares, pulled into the crowd by a man who’s stride is three times her length, arm wrenched roughly, mouth open, her words lost to the din.

When they holiday at Reiden Lake, she comes out of the deep, blonde hair a tangled veil, her skin porcelain white, the flash of a fishes belly. Too far away, Olivia sees something else, dark and tangled in the reeds. She pushes to the surface cold, frozen as if she’s fallen through ice, and lets her limbs cut through the water smoothly until she reaches shore.

It was the underwater current, she tells herself, bloating out a boy's parka, filling out the small lines of the body until it looked occupied. Streaked with mud, rotting through, so far down in the recesses of the lake Olivia’s convinced she imagined it.

Olivia sees her through the trees as the branches flail overhead and the storms gather, prickling her skin with electricity. The little girl runs in the distance like a sprite, from one point of harbour to another, quick as a shadow. She doesn’t sense fear, or need of comfort, and that’s wrong, wrong, _wrong._ Olivia senses maliciousness, unfounded, wild as the weather. She wakes up with her perched on the end of the bed-frame; eyes shining in fury, dirty knees to chest.  She's balanced on her heels and for the first time the distance between them is negligible. Her voice is a three years old sibilant hiss, letters mangled together. “Get out of... _my... _mind.”__

Olivia twists at the accusation, thrashes like a snake.

“Olive,” Nina says. “Olive, calm down, it’s a dream.”

“ _Leave._ ” Olivia says, deep in dreams, half-shifting realities, and the image of a little girl perched on the bed vanishes, gives way to Ms. Sharp.

Her hand rests on Olivia’s forehead and her voice is an encouraging murmur.  “It was a nightmare, Olive. Sssh, breathe, it was a nightmare.” Olivia shrugs her off, skin clammy, her eyes cutting toward the shadows, the thin membrane between light and dark. Her heartbeat races like the third bout in a kickboxing match, she feels sharp, calm, ready to tear her opponent apart.

“Olive,” Nina repeats. “Can you tell me what is was?”

She thinks about three months in the older woman’s care, about honing her reflexes, growing lean, different from the other girls. How Rachel no longer looks at her when trying to gauge Ms. Sharp’s mood, how so far she’s kept her promise; the two girls can talk about anything without fear of reprisal, without an ulterior motive…

“Nothing, Ms. Sharp,” Olivia says evenly.  There are some things it doesn't pay to reveal. She reads disbelief in the older woman. Nina brushes the bangs from Olivia’s eyes, kisses her on the forehead.

“Alright. Try not to think about it, then.”

She relaxes, sinks deeper into the pillows, already forcing herself to forget, the sense of being _threatened_  (by a three year old) sliding away.  "Why did you bring us here?"

"Reiden Lake holds a lot of memories for me.  It's peaceful, don't you think?"

"No."  It feels porous, leaking memories she doesn't understand.  Deliberately, Olivia lets the image of a little girl fall away, shedded like unwanted snakeskin.  Olivia’s fourteen years old the first time she realises she's different, hollowed out, as if she carved a niche and left something of herself behind. 


End file.
